1988 Volvo 240 GLT Saloon (Sedan) 2.3 petrol from UK and Ireland

Summary:

Faults:

Bonnet hinge seized causing the bonnet to jam closed - 4lb lump hammer and chisel, and a new slam panel fixed this for £30.

New exhaust system installed January 2008 (£120).

4x new Firestone tyres all round January 2008.

Corrosion in headlight reflectors (common problem with 240's); passed the MOT, but I am putting in brand new reflectors next week (£110) - I like to see where I am going.

General Comments:

I bought this car in December 2007 as a 2nd family car. The reason why I bought it is because I only had a budget of about £1500 - I wanted a high spec, very reliable car that was comfortable in a traffic jam, could cruise on the motorway and had an auto transmission for driving in the South East of England (where you usually sit in jams, and manuals become tedious) - hence the 240 GLT. I also wanted a car which I could run trouble free for the next 5 years and maintain myself, so it had to be pretty simple.

The GLT has to run on 97RON minimum unleaded or LRP.

Good points:

It cost me £250 to buy.

Wonderfully comfortable leather seats - the only car I know with more comfortable seats is the 940/960 Volvo.

Bullet proof engine - I contacted the Volvo owner's club to see if I qualified for High Mileage - they poo pooed me informing me that 150,000 miles was Bronze membership - 300,00 0miles got you silver, but to be a gold member you had to have done 500,000 miles - speaks for itself - change the oil every 5000 miles, change the cam belt every 50,000 and it should go for ever.

The engine is nippy enough, and you can cause other drivers some concern as you blitz their 1.6i at traffic lights.

Parts are pretty cheap; there is a huge resource of technical know how on the web, and just about any problem will have been encountered before.

Bad Points:

Despite the GLT suspension, the car handles like a pig in mud (mind you I am used to sharp handling cars) - it's a sedate motorway cruiser - not a Lotus.

The saloons (sedans) in particular look dated on British roads, so you sometimes experience other drivers being a bit aggressive as they assume your car is an old banger - quite amusing when you floor it and see them disappear in the mirror!

Next week the car is going to have an LPG tank fitted and the engine converted, which should hopefully save a bit on the fuel (I am always amused that the Amercan reviews on this site comment on how cheap these cars are on fuel - in the UK 97 RON - which is what you have to run the GLT on comes in at £1.10 p per litre - that's over $2 US, and at 27 mpg that is expensive).

To compensate for an additional 70 kg of weight on the rear axle, we are fitting estate springs.

All the electric ignition components are being replaced.

Rust has attacked the rear wheel arch and the panel under the windscreen - I will address this, but expect it to cost me around £500 to do so - once complete I will have a car which will have cost me about £2000 in total, and will run on LPG at £0.45 a litre, and will have all major potential problems fixed.